The Brief

The client was a Dublin-based health and wellness business at a stage where the founding team had built something commercially significant but the finance function had not kept pace with the business’s growth. The management information available to the board was basic — the numbers were produced, but they were not structured in a way that allowed the board to understand what was driving performance or to model the financial implications of commercial decisions.

The business needed a senior finance professional who could own the finance function, build the management information and forecasting capability from the ground up, and operate effectively at board level. The complication was geography: the business was based in Dublin, and the search needed to identify a candidate willing to work primarily remotely with occasional travel to Dublin rather than relocating. Accountancy Capital was briefed to find the right candidate for a brief that combined senior FC scope with an international remote working model. See Financial Controller Recruitment and International Finance Recruitment for the relevant recruitment service context.

The Candidate — Richard FCMA

Richard came to Accountancy Capital with twenty years of post-qualification experience as a CIMA Fellow — FCMA — across a range of industries. His background combined genuine technical depth in management accounting and financial modelling with the commercial finance partnership skills that a board-facing FC role in a growth business requires. He had experience of building finance functions and management information frameworks from a low base, which was the specific experience the Dublin brief demanded.

Richard was actively looking for a role that suited a remote-first working model. His preference was for a position where the substantive work could be done remotely with structured periodic visits to the client site rather than a commute-based role. The Dublin health and wellness brief was a natural fit: the business needed the finance capability Richard offered, and the working model was exactly what Richard was looking for. CIMA’s FCMA designation — the Fellowship grade — reflects sustained post-qualification achievement and is awarded only to CIMA members who have met the professional development, experience and assessment requirements for Fellowship status. Richard’s twenty years of PQE meant his FCMA status was backed by a career that demonstrated the capability at every stage. See Management Accountant Salary Guide UK and FC Salary Guide UK for the salary context for senior CIMA-qualified professionals at this level.

The Search Process

The search for a remote Dublin brief required a different approach from a standard FC search. The candidate pool for a role that is primarily remote but involves periodic international travel to Dublin is not geographically constrained to Dublin or to the UK’s major finance centres — it is defined by willingness to travel to Dublin periodically and by the relevant finance function building experience, rather than by commutable distance.

Accountancy Capital’s network of registered candidates included several FCMA-qualified professionals at the right level of experience who were specifically open to senior remote roles. Richard was identified as the strongest match — not because he was the only candidate with the right technical background, but because the combination of his FCMA depth, his experience of building MI and forecasting frameworks, and his clear preference for the remote-with-travel model made him the candidate most likely to thrive in the specific context of the Dublin brief.

The interview process confirmed what the initial assessment suggested. Richard’s understanding of what the business needed — and his specific experience of having built comparable finance infrastructure at previous employers — gave the Dublin board the confidence that he would be able to deliver independently rather than requiring extensive direction.

The Impact — Financial Information

Richard’s first priority on joining was to understand the existing financial data and reporting and identify the gaps between what the board was receiving and what they needed to run the business effectively. The gap was significant. The existing management accounts reported the top-line numbers accurately but provided limited analysis of the business’s cost structure, minimal visibility of performance by business unit or service line, and no forward-looking financial information.

Working with the existing systems and data, Richard redesigned the management reporting framework to give the board the financial visibility the business needed at its current stage. The new monthly management information pack structured the financial data around the business’s commercial model — revenue by service line, direct costs and contribution margin at the service level, overhead allocation and full P&L by operating unit, and a working capital and cash position summary that gave the board an accurate real-time view of the business’s liquidity position.

The improvement in financial information quality changed the board’s relationship with the monthly numbers. Where the previous reporting had been reviewed and filed, the new reporting became the basis for active commercial discussion at board meetings — because it answered the questions the board was actually asking about the business rather than simply confirming the historical position. This is the standard against which management information should always be assessed: not whether the numbers are accurate, but whether they are useful. See Management Reporting That Gets Read for the framework that underpins this approach.

The Impact — Forecasting Models

The second major workstream was the development of the financial forecasting capability. The business had been operating without a formal financial model — budget decisions were made on the basis of the previous year’s actuals adjusted for known changes, and there was no structured tool for modelling the financial implications of commercial decisions such as a new service line launch, a pricing change, or an investment in additional capacity.

Richard built a multi-scenario financial model that allowed the board to test the financial implications of different commercial assumptions before committing to a course of action. The model was structured around the key commercial drivers of the business — client numbers, utilisation rates, average revenue per client, direct delivery costs and scalable overhead — in a format that allowed the board members themselves to change the key assumptions and see the P&L, cash flow and balance sheet implications of each scenario in real time.

The practical value of the forecasting model became immediately apparent. The board was able to use it to evaluate a capacity investment decision — comparing the financial returns from two different approaches to scaling the business under a range of assumptions about growth rate and utilisation — in a structured, financially rigorous way that had not previously been possible. The decision that emerged from that analysis was different from the decision the board had been leaning toward before the model existed, which is precisely what a well-built forecasting model is supposed to produce. See Building a Three-Statement Financial Model, Scenario and Sensitivity Analysis and AI for FP&A Forecasting for the related Knowledge Centre guides.

The Remote Working Model

One of the questions we are asked most frequently about senior remote roles is whether a primarily remote FC can be as effective as a co-located one. The SBS placement demonstrates that the answer depends entirely on the structure of the engagement and the capability of the individual.

Richard’s engagement was structured around a clear periodic visit schedule — regular trips to Dublin at the points in the financial calendar where in-person presence added most value: the month-end management accounts review with the board, the quarterly business review, the budget-setting process and the year-end. Between those visits, Richard operated remotely using the same communication and collaboration tools the rest of the management team used, attending board calls and management meetings by video and maintaining a daily working relationship with the operations team through the same channels.

The key factors that made the remote model work were the board’s clear commitment to the arrangement from the outset, Richard’s experience of working in similarly structured remote roles, and the quality of the financial infrastructure Richard built — which meant the board had access to the information they needed to manage the business between Richard’s visits rather than depending on his physical presence for financial visibility. See International Finance Recruitment and Fractional Financial Controller for the flexible and international engagement models Accountancy Capital supports.